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Fair Housing

Fair Housing

The ordinances get the abuse backward. “It’s like saying if somebody gets burglarized they’re going to be kicked out of their house,” said Penny Venetis, executive vice president and legal director at the advocacy organization Legal Momentum. “If you’re the victim of a crime, how could you possibly be evicted from your house?”

It can have devastating consequences. “Women should not have to choose between being homeless and staying alive or keeping their children alive,” Venetis said. But “really that’s the choice you’re forcing them to make.”

What do Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee have in common? In this case, the answer has nothing to do with their geographic location or their size. Instead, it has to do with the fact that, in recent years, each has seen fit to enact nuisance ordinances with severely negative effects on domestic violence victims.

The issue in Mt. Holly is whether the Fair Housing Act (FHA), which bans housing discrimination on the grounds (among others) of race or sex, authorizes “disparate impact” challenges to policies that do not explicitly discriminate on the ground of race or sex, but which have an unjustified disproportionate racial or gender impact. Our brief argues that the FHA does authorize disparate impact claims.

Ms. Tucker is appealing the Circuit Court of Cook County ruling, affirming the Chicago Housing Authority's decision to terminate her Housing Choice Section 8 Voucher, without consideration of the applicability of the Violence Against Women Act and Ms. Tucker's status as a victim of domestic violence.